Reach of State TV in Russia

TV remains a top news source among Russians (Source: Levada)

Younger cohorts diversify, but overall TV reach is resilient (Source: Levada)

Trust in TV outpaces other media (Source: Levada)

\(\Rightarrow\) Most citizens still consume propaganda routinely and even trust it

Two questions

  1. How do citizens in autocracies process information from state vs. non-state sources?
  1. And how can we affect this processing?

Possible answers:

  • Propaganda can persuade both supporters and opponents via framing and signaling \(\Leftarrow\) Effects of TV framing
  • The viable counter—especially during the wartime—may be to change how people watch propaganda rather than whether they watch it \(\Leftarrow\) Effectiveness of anti-propaganda interventions

State TV framing as a competence signal


  • Study effects of blame-shifting by central government in Russia through state TV
  • Sample: Online survey in 4 regions of Siberia in late 2019 (\(N = 4423\))
  • Treatment: Rossiya‑1 segments on either roads or wildfires blame-shifting to local governments; Comparison to non-political news segment
  • Result: Responsibility beliefs unchanged, yet policy performance \(\Uparrow\) / government support \(\Uparrow\)

Are regime supporters more persuaded?

  • No! Positive effects on government evaluations among those who believe Russian media to be captured by the state \(\approx\) regime opposers are more persuaded!
  • Those who believe media to be unbiased already consume it \(\Rightarrow\) prior exposure and less effects of additional exposure

How to fight propaganda?

Conventional methods could underperform

  • Offering alternative: Independent journalism is suppressed; Even before the effectiveness was constrained (Enikolopov et al. 2023)
  • Opinion‑leader appeals: persuasive mainly when messengers have topical expertise; otherwise limited (DeSisto et al. 2024)
  • Direct citizen‑to‑citizen interaction: Effects are small at scale (Minson et al. 2024)
  • Media literacy interventions sometimes work, but often fail or backfire, especially where citizens do not trust the opposition (Badrinathan 2021)

  • Our argument: Offering alternatives and expertise struggle under repression \(\Rightarrow\) target how people watch

    • This avoids relying on others’ judgment/expertise and possibly attributing evidence to their political agenda

Drawing attention to political coverage patterns

  • Study effects of attentiveness to political news (co-authored with Anton Shirikov)

  • Sample: 4-wave online panel study in late 2023 (\(N = 1176\))

  • Treatment: At the end of waves 1–3 ask respondent to analyze 4–6 evening news headline segments from combination of three TV channels:

    • Rossiya-1 – the main state propaganda channel
    • RTVI – a private channel with balanced editorial policy
    • Kultura – a non-political channel that covers art, theater, architecture, etc.
  • Content analysis focus: After each video, ask to count [events in Russia / in other countries / Russian authoritites] by [ negative/positive ] tone

From attention to learning and consumption?


  • Do Russians notice differences in news coverage strategies? Yes

    • State media is more positive about Russia/Russian gov’t and more negative about other countries
    • Better distinguish between sources of news headlines (Rossiya-1 vs RTVI quiz)

  • Do they adjust their media consumption? Somewhat

    • Respondents did not decrease consumption of state TV
    • Those who were offered balanced alternative doubled the consumption of it \(\Rightarrow\) Expansion of media consumption, rather than shifting

Did attention to news change political attitudes?

Yes: Lower support for the government and stronger concerns about Ukraine; Happens even after exposure to Rossiya-1 coverage only!

Does this work better on regime sceptics?

  • Yes! Approval of authorities \(\Downarrow\) / concern about Ukraine \(\Uparrow\) among Putin non-supporters
  • But government evaluations also \(\Downarrow\) among regime supporters who analyzed new balanced media

Takeaways



  • Simply asking Russians to pay attention to what state and independent media covers can lead to change in political attitudes
  • This happens even if state TV consumption remains stable \(\Rightarrow\) likely the change in how media is consumed

  • Those who are more critical of the government are more affected

    • Attention-prompting might need to be combined with other techniques (e.g. offering alternative media) to change attitudes of regime supporters

Practical takeaways



  • Conventional counters (Independent media access, mass emails, expert appeals) have (at best) modest effects under wartime repression
  • Attention prompting—simple, contrastive analysis tasks—reduces persuasion inside the propaganda bubble and can aid media diet diversification
  • Targeting matters: effects larger among skeptical/non‑loyalists; core loyalists remain hard to move

References

Badrinathan, Sumitra. 2021. “Educative Interventions to Combat Misinformation: Evidence from a Field Experiment in India.” American Political Science Review 115 (4): 1325–41. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0003055421000459.
DeSisto, Isabelle, Laura Howells, Grigore Pop-Eleches, and Jacob Tucker. 2024. “Countering Authoritarian Propaganda: Perceived Expertise and Persuasiveness.”
Enikolopov, Ruben, Michael Rochlitz, Koen J. L. Schoors, and Nikita Zakharov. 2023. “The Effect of Independent Online Media in an Autocracy.” https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4346225.
Minson, Julia, Aaron Erlich, Christopher Higgins, et al. 2024. “Sharing Accurate News in the Face of Government Repression: A ‘Mega-Study’ in Wartime Russia.”

Attentiveness study sample

Where do Russian get their news from?

Where do Russian get their news from?

Why do they choose state media?

How do they feel about government?

What about effort government spends on policies?